Nostradamus 2014: Prediction, Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems

Book excerpt: The prediction of behavior of complex systems, analysis and modeling of its structure is a vitally important problem in engineering, economy and generally in science today. Examples of such systems can be seen in the world around us (including our bodies) and of course in almost every scientific discipline including such “exotic” domains as the earth’s atmosphere, turbulent fluids, economics (exchange rate and stock markets), population growth, physics (control of plasma), information flow in social networks and its dynamics, chemistry and complex networks. To understand such complex dynamics, which often exhibit strange behavior, and to use it in research or industrial applications, it is paramount to create its models. For this purpose there exists a rich spectrum of methods, from classical such as ARMA models or Box Jenkins method to modern ones like evolutionary computation, neural networks, fuzzy logic, geometry, deterministic chaos amongst others. This proceedings book is a collection of accepted papers of the Nostradamus conference that has been held in Ostrava, Czech Republic in June 2014. This book also includes outstanding keynote lectures by distinguished guest speakers: René Lozi (France), Ponnuthurai Nagaratnam Suganthan (Singapore) and Lars Nolle (Germany). The main aim of the conference was to create a periodical possibility for students, academics and researchers to exchange their ideas and novel research methods. This conference establishes a forum for presentation and discussion of recent research trends in the area of applications of various predictive methods.